Mala And Edek, A Dramatic Love Story

The story of Mala and Edek is a love story that was born, raised and eternalized in a hell: the Auschwitz concentration camp. Their lives were practically forgotten, until journalist Francesca Paci decided to rescue them. Hence, the book A Love in Auschwitz was born .

Mala and Edek were just beginning to live when they fell into the concentration camp. They had to mature on their own and by force.

They didn’t grow old together as they dreamed, but they  became an example that love  is stronger than any atrocity and that this feeling gives value to everything.

The story of Mala and Edek was recovered thanks to all the people who met them in the concentration camp. These men and women  were also inspired by this love, despite the deplorable circumstances in which they found themselves. This story also proves that great loves are capable of changing the lives of people around them.

Mala and Edek, two prisoners

The protagonists of this story are Mala Zimetbaum and Edward Galiński, who was known as “Edek”. Edek was the first person to arrive at the Auschwitz  concentration  camp at just 16 years old. He was a young man of Polish descent and was in high school. During a Nazi invasion, he was arrested and sent to Tarnów prison.

A few months later, in June 1940, he was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Edek arrived at Auschwitz with the first group of prisoners and soon learned to adapt: “Who and what you must avoid and what to cling to to survive, ” he said.

After two years in the concentration camp, he managed to  convince the officers that a locksmith needed to be opened.

His initiative and dynamism in this project earned him a certain sympathy with the Nazis. With that, he ended up getting a privileged position. He took the opportunity to take the weaker prisoners to the workshop, who could not bear to make great physical efforts.

A love in Auschwitz

Mala Zimetbaum was born in Poland, but from a very young age lived in Belgium. She was a great student, excelling mainly in math and languages.

In 1942 she was arrested in Antwerp and sent to a concentration camp. As she knew five languages, from the beginning the Nazis made her work as a translator and messenger.

Mala also had a privileged position and, like Edek, took the opportunity to help those in need. Mala and Edek met when he was assigned to a squad of installers in Birkenau camp.

It was one of those loves that come immediately. They started meeting in secret whenever they could. Everyone in the field called them “Romeo and Juliet.”

This love also gave rise to a deep desire to achieve freedom. They knew the world didn’t know what happened in concentration camps. Therefore, the two began to incubate the idea of ​​running away to denounce the situation. They also wanted to be together forever. Thus was born a plan that seemed crazy and, perhaps because of that, it worked.

a not so happy ending

The escape plan was for Edek to wear an SS officer’s uniform. In disguise, he would take Mala to the edge of the field.

She, in turn, would go disguised as a man and wear a cloth over her head to hide her hair. The aim was to pretend that it was an officer accompanying a prisoner.

Once at the front door, the two would show some exit passes they had managed to get. As hard to believe as it may seem, they managed to complete the plan and, on June 24, 1944, achieved freedom and almost reached the Polish border. However, Mala went to a store and tried to exchange a ring for something to eat. This aroused suspicion among officials and they notified the Gestapo.

Mala was stopped while Edek watched her from a distance. The two had promised to be together forever, so he’d given himself over to the Nazis voluntarily.

Both were taken to a punishment zone in Auschwitz. They were separated and locked, but managed to send messages to each other on scraps of paper. From his cell, Edek sang Italian arias to her.

Before being executed by hanging, Edek tried to hang himself with a noose, without success. Before he died, he shouted “Long live Poland!”

Mala, in turn, cut her wrists before her execution, which would also be by hanging. For this act, she was ordered to be burned alive. However, the guards sympathized and allowed him to bleed before reaching the crematorium. Mala and Edek died on the same day, less than an hour apart.